Reclaiming Political Urbanism in Peace Building Processes: The Hands-on Famagusta project, Cyprus

Authors

  • Socrates Stratis University of Cyprus
  • Emre Akbil Eastern Mediterranean University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.7480/footprint.10.2.1503

Abstract

This case study is about reclaiming a political form of urbanism before the potential Cyprus reunification by enhancing, through the Hands-on Famagusta project, ‘agonistic’ collective practices across the Cypriot divide.

Author Biographies

Socrates Stratis, University of Cyprus

Socrates Stratis (www.socratesstratis.com) is Associate Professor, Department of Architecture, University of Cyprus. He has a Doctorate Degree in Urban Studies-Planning, University of Paris 8 and  Bachelor and Master Degrees of Architecture (Urban Design) from Cornell University. Socrates’s research focuses on the political role of architecture in uncertain, and also contested contemporary urban environments. His is one of the main founders of the agency AA&U, (www.aaplusu.com) and part of the Imaginary Famagusta team He is the editor of the Guide to Common Urban Imaginaries in Contested Spaces, (Berlin: Jovis, 2016). He curated the Cyprus pavilion at the 15th Venice Biennale of Architecture.

Emre Akbil, Eastern Mediterranean University

Emre Akbil is an architect based in Nicosia Cyprus, Lecturer and PhD. Candidate at Eastern Mediterranean University, Department of Architecture, Famagusta. He is part of Imaginary Famagusta (IF) Initiative focusing on roles of urbanism and architecture on reconciliation processes in Cyprus contributing to Hands-On Famagusta project as well as the Cyprus Pavilion in 15th Architecture Biennial of Venice named Contested Fronts. He won several awards for architectural projects. His works focus on bridging the gap between theory and practice revealing the empowering nature of the practice of architecture through enquiries on power, body, politics and subjectivity.

References

Chantal Mouffe, Agonistics: Thinking The World Politically, (London: Verso, 2013).

Jacques Ranciere, Dissensus: On Politics and Aesthetics, ed. and trans. Steven Corcoran (London: Continuum, 2010).

Erik Swyngedouw, ‘Insurgent Architects, Radical Cities and the Promise of the Political’, in The Post-Political and Its Discontents: Spaces of Depoliticization, Spectres of Radical Politics, ed. Erik Swyngedouw and Japhy Wilson, (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015), 169–87.

Stavros Stavrides, ‘Common Space as Threshold Space: Urban Commoning in Struggles to Re-Appropriate Public Space’, Footprint no. 16 (2016): 9–18.

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Published

2017-02-04

Issue

Issue # 19 | Autumn / Winter 2016 | Spaces of Conflict

Section

Case Study

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